


Field Medicine

by NervousAsexual



Series: Whumptober 2020 [20]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Deliberately Vague Mechanics, Exhaustion, Gunshot Wounds, I don't know guns or machines but I do know how to juryrig a prosthetic arm lol, Synth Equivalent of Blood Loss, and i thought that info would never be useful again, field medicine, mechanical gore, self-surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27120397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Alone in a long-abandoned apartment, Nick Valentine tries to patch himself up as best he can.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960987
Kudos: 13
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Field Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober prompt #20--field medicine
> 
> Inspired by [this picture here](https://nimbus2224.tumblr.com/post/179232461507/another-conceptual-of-a-scene-of-nick-holed-up-on) by [nimbus2224](https://nimbus2224.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.

He lines the bullets on the sink as he digs them out. Three mangled slugs so far, 10mm each. He'd almost have preferred a .30 caliber. At least with a rifle the raiders would have hit him at a distance and he might have been able to slip away easier. Wasn't much he could do to avoid an auto handgun six feet away from him.

He takes a moment, bracing his arms against the edges of the sink and letting his head hang down. Probably should have been grateful it wasn't a shotgun. Knowing his luck he would've been picking buckshot out of himself for days.

There's more wounds in him, in his shoulder and upper arm and in his lower left side, but the thought of it makes him sick to his non-existent stomach. He turns his attention to the gaping access point in his front, where the coolant drips from his chest cavity. Busted tube, probably. It hurts like hell but the pain isn't specific enough to tell him where.

The pain spikes when he tries to straighten up. He stares into the mirror, trying to make out where exactly the coolant's coming from, but the apartment is so dark and his eyes don't give off nearly enough light. His insides are a mess of shadows.

He traces his hand through the wires and tubes in his upper chest. It's all slick, which might mean the busted tube is higher up except that he spent an hour lying on his back under a wrecked bus before the raiders gave up looking for him. Maybe the coolant dripped down. Maybe it dripped up. Hell, maybe it's spatter from different wound entirely. He's got enough of it on his face and chest.

His forearms on the sink is most of what's keeping him vertical. He closes his eyes. A second. He'll just take a second.

The apartment is silent but for the steady _drip drip drip_ of the coolant pooling on the floor beneath him and his own strained, shaky breathing.

God, he's tired. He's got a couple half-empty coolant bottles and a stimpack on the floor beside him, and when he's got himself patched up he's gonna refill his reserves, stick himself with the stim, lay down on the couch out in the living area, and power down for hours. That sounds so nice right about now. Maybe by the time he comes back around he won't be so damn sore. Then he'll get back to Diamond City, crawl into his own bed, and power down there for even more hours.

The sheer indulgence of the plan makes him chuckle. Ellie's always after him to take a break. Somehow he doubts this is what she has in mind.

Okay. Second over. He drags his eyes open again and goes back to feeling around in his chest. There's some wires. That's not it. A coolant tube, but it seems pretty firmly set in place. Something over to the left side of...

"Shit."

That's a bundle of nerves. He drops it like it burns. It's actually more of an ache, up and down his leg and hip in all the places the nerves reach.

Toward the top of his abdomen he finally finds it: a single, slender tube, hanging loosely in midair. It's hard to tell with his fingers slick as they are with coolant, but he can't find a break in it. It's just pulled loose.

He pulls the tube tight--winces, he can still feel that--and slips it back into the port where it belongs. Then he lets his head fall again. Hurts like hell. He feels sick. But it's fixed. He can start trying to refill himself and then he can lay down.

The cap to the coolant tank is tight, too tight, and he can't turn it with his damp fingers. He braces his arm against the sink and tries with the other hand. It feels like dull hollow pain inside him, pressure, and if he could get sick he probably would. His fingers bite into the plastic. The pain gets sharper. His hand shakes with the effort. Hurts. Tired. Has to...

The cap finally turns, wrenched free, and he gasps as the abrupt movement causes him to bump painfully against another batch of nerves. More coolant splashes out. Both hands are soaked now. But it's out. He empties the first quart of coolant into his system.

After sitting in some half-hoarded apartment for two hundred years the coolant is actually cool, and it's a shock to the system. His hand shakes as he goes for another quart, trying to remember how much he's lost. More than this. But it's a place to start. It'll keep him from overheating in the meantime. He empties the bottle--only half full, not even a quart--into the tank and lets it fall to the ground while he tries to screw the cap back into place.

Three more bullets. Shoulder, arm, and side. They have to come out before he can use the stimpack; the last thing he needs is to heal up with a bullet still inside him.

He twists a little to get a better reflection of his shoulder. The bullet's not deep; it struck the frame inside his arm and stuck there. It's probably dinged up the metal a bit, but it beats having it travel clear through his body, busting up who knew how much of his insides.

He strokes the tips of his fingers around the wound, grits his teeth, and starts digging.

He presses his forehead to the mirror above the sink as he digs. It's not hard work so much as it is viscerally horrifying. He's just reaching inside his own body, biting into his lip, fingers tearing the wound a little wider as he tries to catch hold of the bullet. It's there, he can feel it, but he can't quite get a grip...

There. He traps it between the tips of his first and middle fingers. He's got it. Gingerly he extracts the battered metal from inside him and adds it to the lineup. Four bullets, lined up around the sink.

Arm next. This one hit just above his elbow, and he can feel it rattling around in the machinery that makes his arm bend and fingers move. It's hard to tell from the outside, but it may have nicked one of the control cables. If the stimpack doesn't fix it he'll have to go in with fishing line and hook up a replacement, at least until he can get back to Diamond City and get Arturo to take a look at it.

He flexes his arm and gives it a good shake. The bullet bounces for a moment before getting stuck in his elbow joint. Good enough. He slips two fingers in from the hole worn into his elbow and stretches and strains until he manages to hook something. He worries the bullet out and sets it with the others. That's five. One more.

He's exhausted now but forces himself to straighten up, putting all his weight onto one leg as he gets a look at the mirror reflecting the wound back to him. This one was the last. He'd been far enough away that it embedded itself in the flesh-plating without completely piercing it.

Shame. He slides a finger over the wound, squeezes his eyes closed, and pushes it through.

The bullet pops free and clatters into some mechanical part or other but for a moment all he can do is brace against the sink. Hurts. Hurts like hell.

When he regains a little bit of control he turns and stumbles out to the living area, hand pawing around at his insides in search of the bullet. It's out. That's the most important part. He can pull it out later, after he's had some rest.

The couch is ancient and filthy and probably home to rats or bugs or both. He doesn't care. He collapses face-down onto the cushions and stabs the stimpack deep into his thigh.

Good enough, he thinks, and before he can stop it he's powered down.


End file.
